


Enough to Go by

by TB_Anon_meme



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 00:58:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17798060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TB_Anon_meme/pseuds/TB_Anon_meme
Summary: Kotetsu and Tomoe vowed to always be there for each other no matter what and Tomoe never broke that promise; she kept watching over Kotetsu in the five years after her death and she's happy to see that Kotetsu has no interest in remarrying or even dating again.But then Barnaby Brooks Jr happens and Tomoe realizes that Kotetsu is starting to have feelings for the young man. Whether she's okay with this development or not is up to you, but I'd like to see Tomoe possessing Barnaby from time to time because she sees this as an opportunity to physically be with her husband again.Author: AnonBased on a prompt from Tiger & Bunny Anon Meme on Dreamwidth, part 4.





	Enough to Go by

**Author's Note:**

> Yep. thisismykink.jpg
> 
> (I'm sorry this is so long. I'm not sorry for the weird prompt, though. >:D)
> 
> Disclaimer: The concept of the Haze was at least partially (mostly?) ripped/inspired from the Grey, from Kat Richardson's Greywalker series of urban fantasy novels. They're pretty good reads; go check them out!
> 
> Source: https://t-and-b-anon.dreamwidth.org/4072.html?page=36#comments

As usual, Tomoe found Kotetsu at his apartment in downtown Sternbild. Unusually, he actually had someone over: a man she thought she recognized as Fire Emblem, a.k.a. Nathan Seymour, from HeroTV.

Fire Emblem had joined the crew three years after Kotetsu had. Her clearest memory of the flamboyant hero was at a party where, upon returning with some drinks from the bar, she was treated to the sight of him gleefully groping her husband's ass. To Kotetsu's credit, he'd remained rather composed about the situation, if a little red in the face.

"You totally liked it," she'd accused him later, grinning. "Come on, no need to hide it from me. I know what's up." She nudged him. "I approve of him, you know. Even if — or maybe because — he's prettier than I am."

Kotetsu simpered. "It's not like that!" he insisted, waving it off. "Nathan's that way with nearly everyone. You get used to it after a while." He hugged her close suddenly and kissed her cheek. "Besides, no one's prettier than you in my eyes and you can't convince me otherwise."

Seeing the two of them curled up on the couch together watching an explosion-laden movie, with Kotetsu resting his head against the side of Nathan's neck and Nathan snaking an arm around Kotetsu's waist, Tomoe wondered just how used to it he'd gotten over the years. Or if Kotetsu had just somehow managed to wrangle himself a Gay Best Friend after she'd died, since she didn't recall them being this close before.

The latter seemed more likely, Tomoe decided as she drifted closer to Kotetsu and Nathan and "tasted" their relationship from the aura that surrounded the two: drawing a breath through partly open lips, the tip of her tongue pressed against the back of her top teeth. Such corporeality shouldn't belong to someone who was just a spirit in the Haze, but it was the only frame of reference she had for what she was doing. Besides, who was going to call her out on it in the realm of the dead?  
As the energy settled into her tongue, the taste of fresh rye bread bloomed in her mouth, soft and savory, with a touch of tomatoes, ham, and — unsurprisingly, in this situation — mayonnaise. Tomoe had learned over time that friendships had a taste associated with bread: sliced bread from the grocery store for casual acquaintances, and crusty fresh bread for closer friends. The aura between really good friends typically tasted like some sort of sandwich, usually (but not always) incorporating the individual tastes from other people involved in the friendship. Lacking from this particular aura, however, was the signature cinnamon sweetness associated with romantic love, which colored tastes without muddying them.

Tomoe breathed in again, paying a little more attention this time. There was a hint of cinnamon somewhere in Nathan's aura, but it was barely noticeable. He had been seriously interested in Kotetsu at some point, apparently, but the feelings had since melted into the tomato-ham-and-mayonnaise-on-rye taste of deep friendship.

Satisfied with her findings for the moment, she settled into the empty space next to Kotetsu on the couch and turned her attention to the movie. If she tried hard enough, she could almost believe that it was the three of them enjoying a planned movie night together, instead of two friends and an interloping ghost who was too stubborn — or scared — to let go of life.

"Cripes, Nathan, but this movie is shit," Kotetsu complained, knocking his head slightly against Nathan's collarbone. "The main character's a dumbass, the plot is stupid, and the special effects aren't even that good. How was this the number-one movie at the box office for the past two months?"

"I was hoping to figure that out by watching it myself," Nathan responded. He ran a soothing hand through Kotetsu's dark hair. "So far, I'm just as perplexed as you are, darling."

Kotetsu grumbled, and with it Tomoe caught a whiff of sandalwood smoke.

Smell was the other sense that was strangely transformed by her passing from the living realm into the Haze. Tomoe could discern more of the texture of smells and how many there were, and all of it would point to the emotional state of the person or people it was emanating from. Exasperation or annoyance smelled like smoke, but the quality and intensity of it depended on a number of factors. In Kotetsu's case, he was clearly miffed by the movie, but the resulting smoke smell wasn't that strong, so it wasn't vexing him that much. The overall scent of the scene had been fragrant and earthy, an indication of relaxation. It was a welcome change from the sterile, rubbing alcohol-like stench of loneliness that usually pervaded Kotetsu's apartment.  
"Oh, I know what it is," Kotetsu muttered darkly. "I bet this movie is super-popular because the lead actor kind of looks like Bunny."

"Bunny"? The interesting name was accompanied by an equally interesting mix of smells. Tomoe detected the acrid bite of coal smoke, which meant that Kotetsu harbored some significant irritation towards whoever this Bunny was. But it was threaded through with something softer that she couldn't quite discern because the coal smoke was so overwhelming. And she couldn't taste their relationship, either, since Bunny wasn't in the room with Kotetsu and Nathan. 

"He does not," Nathan insisted. "The only thing the two have in common is that they're attractive men with blond hair and green eyes."

"And glasses."

"He's only wearing glasses for this role."

"Well, whatever. Don't you think he still looks like Bunny?"

"Darling, their facial structures are completely different."

Kotetsu pouted. "Fine, fine. I'll trust your judgment."

Nathan giggled and gently poked Kotetsu in the side with a graceful finger. "I think our little tiger has a certain somebody on his mind," he teased, making a kissy face.

"Don't even joke about that!" Kotetsu looked horrified. "Bunny's been pissing me off from day one — you can't blame me for being annoyed at any reminder of him on my off-time!"

And then Tomoe finally identified the other scent associated with the name.

Cinnamon.

Well, now. This was interesting.

"If you say so," Nathan drawled. "But I still maintain that Alexander Steele looks nothing like Handsome."

Tomoe glanced back at the movie, where the main character was currently having some sort of heart-to-heart conversation with the blandly beautiful female lead. Alexander Steele was young and scruffily handsome in a way that could set him up for characters that were either tough guy heroes (as he was in this movie) or charmingly awkward underdog love interests. He...didn't look like the type of person who would have the name "Bunny" attached to him. Tomoe hoped to God that that was just a nickname on Kotetsu's part, because otherwise she felt like she was going to have to throw all her sympathy behind a guy who was unfortunate enough to be named that by his parents. Actually, scratch that: Bunny already had some of her sympathy for being named such by her husband. She wondered if he knew about it.

She stuck around for a few more minutes, hoping to find out more about this Bunny person that had been pissing off Kotetsu in the time since she'd visited him last. But he and Nathan had fallen mostly silent, their attention snared by the explosions that had interrupted Steele's tender moment with his love interest, and she was feeling her own stability starting to waver a little from being so close to the living realm. She could never actually fully manifest in the Clear (as she called it), but she could get close enough that it strained her connection with the energies of the Haze, which were — as far she could tell — rather important in keeping her consciousness glued together. She had seen many spirits in her time become frayed and burned from hovering near the Clear for too long, even more obsessed than she was with trying to regain what they had lost. If she were going to cling to the remnants of her old life, she was going to at least be smart about it.

Swearing to eventually figure out who Bunny was, Tomoe faded back into the deeper layers of the Haze to recover.

 

***

The problem with being in the Haze, aside from the fact that it meant that one was dead, was that time passed differently between there and the Clear. Something that felt like a day in the Haze could be two months in the Clear, or vice versa. The ratio usually (but not always — the realm could be capricious) depended on how deep you were in the Haze, with something closer to 1:1 occurring in the layers bordering the Clear.

This temporal element extended to the terrain of the Haze as well, which seemed like an accumulation of the combined memories of Sternbild itself piled on top of each other. And much like memories, the details could be hazy, hence Tomoe's name for the place. The further she descended through the layers of time, the blurrier and more tea-stained things got. Even the layers closest to the present dulled the brilliant colors of life with a sad sort of sepia. It was like living (well, existing) inside a badly-deteriorated vintage photograph, only not as nostalgic because there were some seriously creepy things wandering around...and that was just counting the things that might have been human at some point in their existence.

It wasn't all bad here, though. Aside from having acquired the baffling ability to smell emotions and taste relationships, Tomoe could easily warp through the layers of the Haze to wherever Kotetsu was, with merely the thought and the will to do it. But this was only because the two of them shared such a powerful emotional connection. He was the sole constant for her, the lighthouse that guided her to a home unfettered by the walls of any earthly location. The only other person she could reliably track down this effortlessly was her precious daughter Kaede.

When Tomoe next found her husband, he seemed to be in the middle of an episode of HeroTV, facing off against a portly fellow who sported a jetpack on his back and some sort of crystalline substance on his skin. And at some point between the last time she'd seen him in action (which was who knew how long ago; she hadn't been able to look up a temporal touchstone at the time), he'd ditched his old costume for an impressive mechanical suit in green, white, and black, with a helmet that covered his face completely. The only reason she recognized him was because there was no way she'd ever forget the distinctive imprint of his soul on the Haze, something that had no tangible equivalent like emotions or relationships did. But she was glad for the change: she'd secretly thought his previous costume looked pretty ugly, not that the poor man had had any input into its design. At least it had defined the contours of his body quite nicely and inspired many a late-night fantasy as a result.

Accompanying Kotetsu was someone Tomoe didn't recognize at all. He was about the same height, and wore a similar suit except in shades of red and pink(?!). Surrounding the two was the pine fragrance of focus and adrenaline, though the red one had wisps of smoky annoyance lingering around him; something had probably happened earlier to vex him, but he'd set it aside for the moment. The relationship between them tasted like soup (a rather salty cream of mushroom, if she had to guess), so that meant they were professionally connected. But she'd already deduced that just by looking at the situation. What she was really interested in was —

There.

The taste of cinnamon, very faint but unmistakably present.

On both sides.

So this must be the guy that's got Kotetsu all hot and bothered, Tomoe thought, intrigued. A new co-worker, it seems like. She had to admit that the suit...did kind of make him look like a bunny. Sort of. If she were seeing it in a funhouse mirror while drunk. It was mostly the extensions on top of his helmet that bore the resemblance. Is Bunny his superhero name? That's not exactly the most threatening moniker in the world. Unless he also happens to be a vampire bunny.  
So, your powers are about to run out, huh?" the criminal sneered. "Then I'll play around with you guys one last time!"

"Thanks for the offer!" Kotetsu chirped. He rushed forward with the speed granted to him by his NEXT power and drove his fist into the criminal's stomach.

WHAM!

Tomoe blinked. The punch hadn't done anything to that man!

"Geez, you're tough," Kotetsu stuttered. He pulled back just in time for Bunny to come barreling in with a kick to the criminal's jeweled jaw, an attack that proved equally ineffective at hindering him in any way.

The rose scent of smugness was positively malodorous radiating from this particular man. "No one can defeat me!" he declared, throwing his arms out with a triumphant laugh.

Tomoe watched anxiously as the two Heroes tried their best to break through the man's hardened skin with rapid-fire punches and kicks. The criminal didn't actually seem all that dangerous, as far as she could smell, but all that boasting he was doing was pretty irritating, and that was enough reason for her to want Kotetsu and his partner to take him down a notch by arresting him. Well, more of a reason.

Either way, she...had to admit that she was really enjoying being on the scene while Kotetsu was working. Sure, he was risking life and limb doing so, and that of course worried her, but being on the job seemed to infuse an extra burst of spirit into his already sanguine demeanor. Even filtered through a team of producers and the TV screen, it was plain as day that there was a vigor to Kotetsu the Hero that wasn't found in quite the same way anywhere else, and she had always been curious to see just how much more intense the difference was in person. For obvious reasons, she'd never been able to do that while she was still alive. Another strange perk of being dead, she thought.

"Five seconds remaining," a feminine computer voice suddenly intoned from...the suits? "Four...three..."

"Good Luck Mode!" came a more masculine digitized voice.

CL-CLANK! SHTUNK! CLANG!

The armor on Kotetsu's right arm and Bunny's right leg swiftly unfolded and reformed into what looked like weapons of impending destruction. The two of them shone brightly with power.

"Three...two...one..."

Tomoe held a breath she never had in the first place.

Kotetsu and Bunny let out a yell as they went in for one final hit on the criminal.

WHAAAMMM!!

"Tiger and Bunny, over and out!" the male voice announced.

And after a moment's pause...the criminal's crystalline skin shattered, revealing the pathetic figure of a pudgy young man who then collapsed to the ground. CR-AAACK! WHUMP!

Kotetsu exhaled. "We did it..."

Tomoe smiled and clapped.

"Good job, you two!" crackled another voice over the intercom, and Tomoe winced upon hearing it. Unlike the first two voices, this one was definitely human, albeit so obnoxiously brash that she probably could've heard the man ten miles away. Maybe it was a NEXT power?

"This new feature you installed is amazing," Bunny said, looking down at his enhanced leg. "It really boosts our power!"

"Nope! Your power doesn't change at all!"

"Huh?"

"It just makes you look cooler in battle."

Of course it does, Tomoe thought with a dry fondness. This is HeroTV we're talking about. Cool is the rule with them.

"What?" Kotetsu sputtered, raising the faceplate of his helmet in consternation. "That's it?"

Bunny also lifted his faceplate...

And Tomoe suddenly found herself looking at the most beautiful man she'd ever laid eyes on.

Oh, make no mistake — Kotetsu was pretty, in a dorky, endearing sort of way. Certainly he'd been the prettiest delinquent she'd ever seen in her life outside of shoujo manga. 

But Bunny...Bunny was like if Apollo himself had descended from Mount Olympus to fight crime. Delicate features, golden hair, eyes like deep jade, a voice like velvet...the man could make a rock question its own sexuality, never mind a mere mortal like Kotetsu. Though Kotetsu himself didn't seem to be aware of his attraction to the other man.  
(Truth be told, neither of them appeared to have gotten the memo on the fact that they actually liked each other, even a little. How long had they been working together for?)

Tomoe was distantly aware of the obnoxious intercom voice nattering on about teamwork and how the two Heroes had been completely in sync, but she was still trying to process this new piece of...information. Bunny was much younger than she'd expected — he had to be at least ten years Kotetsu's junior. Not that that stopped Tomoe from appreciating him, since she was fairly sure he was at least legal. Goodness, if she were still alive she'd be asking Kotetsu if they could take the pretty bunny home. To their bedroom.

In the chaos of Kotetsu and Bunny denying that they were doing anything remotely like "working together", the criminal managed to pick himself up and started to away from the scene as quietly as possible. No luck: Kotetsu swiftly snatched him up by the back of his shirt and dangled the hapless man in the air. He paused for a moment before glancing over his shoulder at Bunny.

"You can have this one," he said.

"Huh?"

Kotetsu brandished the criminal at him. "This is your birthday present!"

Bunny looked affronted. "Excuse me? Don't tell me you took me seriously when I said I wanted that diamond. I could never accept it."

"Not that! I'm letting you arrest him!" A grin. "It's points you want, isn't it? So here you go. Happy birthday, Bunny."

That...was actually one of the most thoughtful and appropriate presents Tomoe had ever seen from anyone. She was impressed. And maybe also a little amused. Okay, definitely amused. Did he forget to get something else for Bunny for his birthday? Lord knows he'd forgotten mine often enough.

Bunny frowned. "There's nothing 'happy' about it," he grumbled, walking over to Kotetsu. "I told you that I'm sick of your meddling!" The acid in his tone was somewhat dulled by the fact that his Good Luck Leg was still active, forcing him to adopt a rather awkward step-and-drag shuffle instead of the confident, assured gait he probably wanted. "'Happy birthday'? How embarrassing." He snatched the criminal from Kotetsu's hand and waddled past him to hand the man off to Sternbild police.

"...hey, why are you smiling?" came the criminal's sudden inquiry.

"I'm not smiling," Bunny stated flatly.

Liar. She could smell his happiness in the air, the emotion manifesting as a refreshing orange tang. Curiously enough, the orange was slightly imbued with a touch of minty confusion, as though Bunny were startled by the sudden presence of joy within him.

Tomoe gave Kotetsu a ghostly kiss before heading over to Bunny, intending to track him back to his home so she could potentially find him in the future if she needed or wanted to. The man had been the catalyst for the most entertaining Kotetsu visit she'd had since landing in the Haze, and she wanted to see what kind of person he was like on his own. Would he be good for Kotetsu? Would Kotetsu be good for him? Mutual attraction didn't necessarily mean they'd be compatible. She suspected (hoped) they would be, but a little investigation into the matter couldn't hurt. Not that she'd really be able to act on her findings, limited as she was as a spirit.

(She most definitely had no interest in sneaking a peek at Bunny in the shower while she was at it. Not at all. Why would she ever abuse her spectral status in such an indelicate way?)

The maelstrom of emotional scents inside Bunny's apartment was so strong it practically made her illusory eyes water.

First Tomoe smelled the loneliness, which she was more than familiar with from Kotetsu's place. But at least Kotetsu's place looked lived in. Bunny's apartment was just as bare and bleak as it smelled — there was practically no personalization whatsoever except for a recliner in the center of the room and a small desk, which Bunny made a beeline for after taking off his jacket and boots. There was also a giant picture of a hibiscus on the wall behind the recliner, but she didn't think that was there by Bunny's choice; it seemed more like the interior decorating version of the default desktop wallpaper one got with a brand new computer. Tomoe wondered if he had just moved in and that was why the place was unfurnished, but there should at least be a couple of moving boxes lying around if that were the case.

More troubling to her than the loneliness was the rotten-egg reek of rage, wreathed in coalsmoke frustration, that alternately fought and embraced the clean stench of rubbing alcohol. Tomoe wanted to attribute that to the former occupants of the apartment, but as she quickly flipped back through the temporal layers of the Haze (gaining a much needed energy boost in the process, small though it was), she learned that Bunny was the apartment's first — and only — tenant.

Where did all of that emotion come from? Tomoe wanted to know. His feelings of isolation made sense, given that he was a young man living on his own, but rage? She'd scented it around Kotetsu in some of his darker days after her death, but never had it lingered this long or been this strong. Why did a seemingly well-adjusted, successful young man like Bunny have such an infernal monster caged in his heart?

She meandered over to him as he leaned back in his chair and clicked a small remote, bringing up a swarm of digital screens in the darkness of his apartment: various newspaper articles, personal profiles, digital notes and diary entries. She suddenly caught wind of a bottom note of grief: salty ocean breezes almost drowned out by sulfuric ire. The smell was primarily centered on a nearby picture frame and a little robot toy beside it, which would explain why she'd missed it earlier. A closer look at the picture revealed a young boy who had to be Bunny as a child, accompanying a seated woman in a pink dress sharing his blond hair and green eyes — undoubtedly his mother. Standing behind Bunny was a tree trunk of a suit-wearing man with dark eyes and hair.

Tomoe glanced back up at the screens hovering in the air, and she caught sight of a newspaper article dating back about twenty years, featuring the portraits of the man and the woman in the picture frame. She could only make out parts of it, covered as it was by other screens, but she saw all that she needed to know.

'Corpses found in fire-devastated house remains identified as those of husband and wife, famed robot engineers'

The wife's name was obscured by what looked like a profile on a criminal, but Tomoe saw the man's name: Barnaby Brooks. Which she'd already surmised, having seen Bunny's real name, Barnaby Brooks Jr., plastered on a billboard advertisement while she was hitching a ride home with him on his motorcycle. It was such a quaint, old-fashioned name that was out of step with a hip young star like him, yet it was precisely his star status that made it cool again, or at least not quite as cringeworthy. Still, she started to understand why Kotetsu just called him "Bunny" all the time. The nickname was only a smidgen more embarrassing than "Barnaby."

Though...if Bunny's a Jr., shouldn't there be a "Sr." after his dad's name? 

Tomoe shook her head, wondering why that thought had just occurred to her, and instead let her gaze wander over the other screens for the next few minutes, taking in what she could as Bunny shifted through old documents and brought up new ones. The three significant things that she managed to infer were that his parents' deaths were connected to something called Ouroboros, and that no one seemed to have any clue exactly what Ouroboros was...

And that Bunny was going to find out, come hell or high water.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own any of the fanfics I post there.  
> If you are the author and you have a proof that you posted your fic deanoned before,  
> please message me and I will delete it right away.


End file.
